Kerrie Douglas, Ph.D., a Purdue University School of Engineering Education associate professor, spent a month in the United Kingdom this summer as a Fulbright Specialist, hosted by the Centre for Engineering Education at University College London (UCL). Douglas’s award focused on helping improve evaluation strategies in UCL’s Integrated Engineering Program (IEP) as well as consulting with colleagues across disciplines in the College of Engineering on innovative classroom assessment strategies and ways to conduct impactful engineering education research.

Douglas’s Fulbright Specialist Award is part of a program that pairs highly qualified U.S. academics and professionals with host institutions abroad to share their expertise, strengthen institutional linkages, hone their skills, gain international experience, and learn about other cultures while building capacity at their overseas host institutions.

Douglas was invited to take part in the celebration of the 10^th anniversary of the IEP, which has revised eight existing engineering degree programs to emphasize professional skills practiced alongside key engineering concepts, project-based activities, and interdisciplinarity. Douglas joined a working group charged with strengthening and enhancing the program, specifically focusing on ways to collect evaluation data to meet the information needs of the program’s stakeholders. She shared an evaluation framework developed from her previous research that could be adapted to their needs (see https://peer.asee.org/32152 and  https://peer.asee.org/34004).

In addition, she evaluated classroom assessments in UCL’s mechanical and electrical engineering programs and helped devise new approaches to assessing students in engineering classrooms to buffer the challenges presented by artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT. 

“How do instructors accurately assess a student’s learning arc and knowledge retention when these students have access to AI to help them with their homework?” asked Douglas. “We want engineering students to learn to do things that AI can’t replace. One solution was to design assessment methods that allow a student to use AI in the process of answering a question on an assignment, but then take that assignment a step further by requiring the student to critically evaluate AI’s response.”

In addition to modifying assessment frameworks to ensure student knowledge accountability, Douglas planned programmatic strategy with engineering school leads; conducted a workshop to help faculty better understand what reviewers want to see in engineering education-focused grant proposals; and attended a symposium alongside colleagues from all of the world that focused on integrated engineering programs. Douglas said the experience also gave her plenty of ideas to bring to Purdue’s College of Engineering along with plans for its School of Engineering Education to host UCL faculty and staff as the universities move toward a mutually beneficial partnership.